Center of the Nation

Took off today from my parents place west of Belle Fourche heading towards Sundance, WY after getting the new tire put on my bike.  After 7 miles I stopped in Aladdin, WY to adjust my rear derailure and met some nice folks from Perth Australia who were tandem biking west to east with a large supported group.  Nice folks who told me that the roads in Oz are not entirely biker friendly and the road trains tend to make riding there more entertaining than it should be.  After 10 more miles I stopped to pull my rear tire off because it still wasn’t shifting right and found that a washer was missing in my rear cassette allowing the cogs to wiggle back and forth.  After a 30 min rest Mom came by and picked me up and brought me back to Rushmore Bicycle and had the mechanic there work on the tire again, only a 5 min fix ignoring the 30 min wait and 50 mile round trip drive.  But he confessed to his mistake and accepted the blame, which is about all you can ask (except for doing it right the first time) but I did get to eat lunch with my old man again.  Leaving Spearfish we passed 3 bikers heading west, loaded down almost as bad as I am, so on arriving near intersection where I quit biking that morn I waited for them and joined up as they came along.  Dan, Sebastian, and Jeff were their names and they had started biking in Brooklyn, NY and were heading home to San Jose, CA.  www.jeffeq.com/biketrip is their blog and they are great guys.  We pedaled along swapping stories from the road, finding out which bike shops and towns we both passed through then after about 7 miles after joining them we came along a guy pushing a cart.  Jack had started walking from Jacksonville, FL and was walking home to Seattle, WA.   This whole trip I haven’t met anyone crossing the country till this morn when I met the group heading east then that afternoon on an empty stretch of Wyoming highway I met up with Jeff, Sebastian, Dan, and Jack.  We sat on the side of the road for probably an hour talking before the four of us on bikes went ahead to Sundance.  We got to where my mom had parked and I offered homemade cookies and cold water and we sat and talked more and eventually Jack walked over and joined the group again.  While I only made it 25 miles today and it started out with me questioning the heritage of the bike mechanic at Rushmore Bicycle in Spearfish, SD, but riding and trading stories with the San Jose guys and meeting Jack made it one of the best days on the road.  Safe travel guys!

It was nice spending time with the parentals though over the weekend while I waited for that tire to show up.  It gave me a chance to get the bike back in tune and make sure the rack didn’t loosen at all.  Went in Spearfish Thursday for happy hour and met the president of Black Hills State University along with some of the other top administration there who wanted to hear about my trip.  Ya, I’m kinda a big deal.. :)  Back on the farm I worked on the list my dad had ready for me (didn’t involve fencing this time.. a first in over 12 years)  then Sunday I went to help the neighboring ranch, Leistmisters Triangle “H” move cows.  Its been a long while since I had chased cows and I have never chased cows in country that rough, or beautiful.  I spent 7 hours riding over mountains, down canyons and through trees and I have a new respect for the cowboys who work that type of land. 

Tomorrow I start for Casper, where I will meet up with my Aunt Shelly for supper later this week then I will head on over the mountains.  Almost to the downhill part of the journey!